Midge

A couple of months ago I met a sweet miniature donkey named Midge, and I felt compelled to paint a watercolor of her. Midge’s best friend (and owner) is a friend of mine, and I wanted to give her a painting of Midge. And so, the adventure began.

As I progressed from photoshoot to sketches and then to painting, I felt a mysterious inner prompting moving me ahead. As time went on, I realized that the Midge project was becoming bigger than I expected – bigger in terms of the number of sketches and paintings and big in its impact on my journey as an artist and on my friend. The impact is beginning to ripple out to other friends of Midge.

God has used Midge to lead me to a new place of freedom and confidence in His gift and show me His purposes in it. I have had a narrow view of what I considered my ministry, and it didn’t include art. Things began to change a couple of years ago when a dear friend from the desert helped me see that I was “putting God in a box.” Well, Midge has been helping me take the lid off the box. Thanks, Midge.

God has given each of us a gift fitted to our own personality and wiring. Each uniquely expresses some facet of His infinite goodness and limitless beauty. His Spirit is the mysterious inner force that compels and empowers us in its expression and leads us to those He wants to touch through it.

He is blessed when we embrace the gift and sink into the rhythm and flow of the Spirit’s prompting in its expression. He then turns the blessing back on us and onto others. Freedom breaks upon the gift like the rising golden sun when we follow that prompting to serve one another in love. Who knows what He will do with it or how far the ripples will spread? God is so good.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us new in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10).

Click here to view the watercolors and read more of Midge’s story: https://pamteschner.com/gallery/

Why am I?

There are times and seasons when we wonder why our personal set of genetic codes exist. I have been in such a season of reflection. Why am I?

I exist to live in a deeply personal relationship with the One who created me, redeemed me, and is alive within me in all the fullness of his divine life. That alone is staggering and more than enough for a lifetime. But it gets even more amazing.

Before time began, God planned and purposed you and me to do amazing stuff through all the seasons of our lives. He “shapes the precious life he saves and does so for a special purpose. The pattern starts to unfold — a pattern for which God has been shaping you as he takes you through a lifelong pursuit and to a treasured fulfillment of serving him well. God intends to help each one of us live with his design in mind and not to trample underfoot his exquisite workmanship. The design is beautiful. The promise is sure. The end result is profound. The answers will all be there. But the condition is clear: we must search for God with all our hearts.”[1]

Note the last line – “we must search for God with all our hearts.” We find our special purpose and gifting not by pursuing the gift but the Giver. Within him is the truth of who and why you are. Stay your heart upon him and guard against the insidious whispers of doubt that question and warp Truth.

He loves you fiercely, and has given you an extraordinary gift. The gift is very precious to him and tailor made for your unique set of genetic codes. May you “see the beauty and the marvel he had in mind when he created you.”1

What must he feel when I think I have so little and minimize it through comparisons? Have I trampled it under the foot of insecurity or doubt?  May what I do with what I’ve been given make his heart sing! And may I trust him to use it when and where and how it most pleases him and leave the end result in his hands.


[1] Zacharias, Ravi K. (2007) The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.